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I just picked up a "Used - Like New" copy of Tim Richards' Exploring Jazz Piano from Amazon, and I was all excited about it... until the book arrived and it stinks of some horrible cheap perfume (air freshener? Febreze??)

On one hand, I wonder whether a person who voluntarily uses supermarket air fresheners or those smelly dryer sheets would notice the smell of this book, but I definitely did. I needed to wrap it back up in its box, just to get over feeling sick from being in the same room with it.

So is there any way of un-Febrezeing a book? I was thinking of leaving it out on our apartment balcony for a week, buried in baking soda, but i'm not even sure that would work.

Or is "stinky with cheap perfume" a sufficient reason to return a used book to Amazon?

If the box and packaging are stinky too, get rid of them ASAP!Put the book outside with a container of baking soda next to it. Those fragrances are pretty volatile--that's why people who like them keep using more. It will dissipate over the course of several days to weeks.

_________________________Ladies and Gentlemen: This is not a competition, merely an exhibition. No wagering please.

It's funny how some people are supersensitive to smells, myself included. I fell in love with a beautiful chair at consignment shop. Before making an offer I suddenly had the impulse to give it a sniff. It positively reeked of cigarettes! Ew.

Don't even get me started on perfume or cologne at concerts or scented candles - instant headache and cough. When I walk down the detergent aisle at the grocery store my eyes water. Did you know you can request that your newspaper and magazine subscriptions not have perfume ads included? Just tell them you are allergic.

I was on an airplane recently where they announced that there would be no peanuts served because one passenger on board had an allergy. I wanted to ask them to announce to the person behind me in seat 29A that she needed to go wash and stop applying whatever stinky product she thought she needed because of my allergy!

I forgot to say before, good luck with getting the stink out of your book!

_________________________Ladies and Gentlemen: This is not a competition, merely an exhibition. No wagering please.

So it turned out that I remained so outraged over my stinky book (I had really been looking forward to getting this one), that I stomped back into the Amazon website and slapped the return button.

Probably because my used book was "fulfilled by Amazon", returning it was pretty painless. I said it was "not as described" since it was supposed to be "Like New", but it had some seriously crumpled & restraightened pages, as well as stinking of Febreze. Amazon accepted that and gave me an UPS return label no prob.

[Which, BTW, is much less of a pain than trying to get a return label for something from a third-party seller which is not fulfilled by Amazon. I've done it a couple of times (shoes that didn't fit, or receiving the wrong book entirely), and I have yet to have a seller who was able to get the return label to me via the Amazon messaging system. After multiple fruitless attempts, I've always had to send them my Gmail address to actually get the darned label.]

Now my roommate/best friend as been buying a number of second hand paper cutting dies, which have a foam layer to protect the blades, and this foam is unfortunately quite effictive at retaining the stink of cigarette smoke (or supposedly remedial Febreeze). She was disappointed when she heard I had simply decided to return the book, as she has been perfecting her destinkefying techniques. Her arsenal includes sunlight, baking soda, charcoal bags, and yes, coffee grounds.

I simply ordered myself a fresh new copy of the book. I had only been saving a few dollars on the used copy anyway.

I think Amazon is great for refunds - and many other customer services.

I would have had a similar reaction - I really don't like strong scents...well, it is more than a simple dislike - they give me headaches and create nausea.

Hope your new copy arrives soon!

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

I just picked up a "Used - Like New" copy of Tim Richards' Exploring Jazz Piano from Amazon, and I was all excited about it... until the book arrived and it stinks of some horrible cheap perfume (air freshener? Febreze??)

On one hand, I wonder whether a person who voluntarily uses supermarket air fresheners or those smelly dryer sheets would notice the smell of this book, but I definitely did. I needed to wrap it back up in its box, just to get over feeling sick from being in the same room with it.

So is there any way of un-Febrezeing a book? I was thinking of leaving it out on our apartment balcony for a week, buried in baking soda, but i'm not even sure that would work.

Or is "stinky with cheap perfume" a sufficient reason to return a used book to Amazon?

__________________________________________________

Interesting thread/posts.

I used to, of course, go to used book stores - but most have closed. I used to find chairs in mint condition left for recycling many years ago, but that changed immediately when hotels and apartments around the world, and here in Canada, had infestations of bedbugs, and getting worse over the years. I live in a shack, but I don't want any problems. In the last 2 or 3 years lots of branches of the public library has had to close because of books having bedbugs I guess returned from places/houses/apartments that have bedbugs, so I don't go to the library. I haven't heard or read of the universities having problems. Don't get downtown very much but I was downtown the other day and there are still people on the sidewalks wrapped in sleeping bags. We didn't have homesless people when I was I kid - they were given money to live on but now governments don't have that kind of money. and the middle class don't all make big bucks so they don't pay big bucks in taxes. Bedbugs are extremely difficult to kill because you can freeze them and unless you boiling things they and their eggs will survive so say the papers. Hospitals, of course, emergency, get people from all walks of life and conditions so they have to be careful.

There is a odor eliminating spray you can find either in a pet store, health food store, or possibly the super market. They use enzymes to eliminate odors. Maybe go out on the deck, spray it in the air and wave the book through it. If none of the suggestions you've gotten so far work then I'd return it.

One the topic "smells", one of my colleagues wears so much perfume that you know she has been in out building because the smell of her perfume lingers long after she has gone! And I'm not talking a light smell I mean it smells like someone just sprayed perfume in the room. Yuck!

You're funny, and as far as I'm concerned, it's okay if you mouth off all you want.I'm glad you're here, and also glad that the internet hasn't developed Smell-a-vision!

Me too.

This conversation has reminded me of a guy in an office I worked in years and years ago. The man never seemed to bathe, or wash his clothes, and he smoked and drank. The smell was a physical assault on the senses.He used to bring handwritten copy to be typed up and put into a word processing format and even the papers he had worked on smelled revolting. I clearly remember one of the women in our group spraying them with her perfume before she worked on them. I always wondered what he thought when he got them back... or maybe he never even noticed....

Edited by casinitaly (07/03/1311:37 AM)

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

"This conversation has reminded me of a guy in an office I worked in years and years ago. The man never seemed to bathe, or wash his clothes, and he smoked and drank. The smell was a physical assault on the senses.He used to bring handwritten copy to be typed up and put into a word processing format and even the papers he had worked on smelled revolting. I clearly remember one of the women in our group spraying them with her perfume before she worked on them. I always wondered what he thought when he got them back... or maybe he never even noticed...."

I reckon he`d have erotic thoughts for the rest o` the day . . .

_________________________
"I'm playing all the right notes � but not necessarily in the right order." Eric Morecambe

"This conversation has reminded me of a guy in an office I worked in years and years ago. The man never seemed to bathe, or wash his clothes, and he smoked and drank. The smell was a physical assault on the senses.He used to bring handwritten copy to be typed up and put into a word processing format and even the papers he had worked on smelled revolting. I clearly remember one of the women in our group spraying them with her perfume before she worked on them. I always wondered what he thought when he got them back... or maybe he never even noticed...."

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

We had a bad smell in the car yesterday. I blamed the dog, wife blamed me for not showering after goin` out on me bike . . . . turned out to be a leaky milk carton from a week ago! But I`ve been using body spray ever since . . . .I sure smell now heh heh . .

_________________________
"I'm playing all the right notes � but not necessarily in the right order." Eric Morecambe

My sister accidentally left a chicken in the trunk of her car (that would be the boot, Peter ) It must have fallen out of the bag on the trip home from the supermarket...... They discovered it AFTER the weekend ...... the smell was unreal. And long lasting.

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

This is a funny thread- made me smile. I would have returned the book also. I am fond of old books and have a few Victorian ones but they smell great, that antique paper smell.Can't stand stale perfume ( the kind old ladies wear yuk) or that Febreze and synthetic stuff. I like essential oils like Lemon Verbena- have an oil pot.

One of my favorite recorder vendors (Lazar's Early Music) simply won't send recorders out for trial to homes where anyone smokes. Before a trial goes out you sign an agreement that if the recorder comes back smelling of smoke, your card is charged and you own the recorder whether you liked it or not.

P.S. If you're thinking, ewwwww, other people's spit", what comes out of the end of a recorder is condensation, not spit.

_________________________
One who does what the Friend wants donewill never need a friend.

_________________________
"Doesn't practicing on the piano suck?!?!""The joy is in the practicing. It's like relationships. Yeah, orgasms are awesome, but you can't make love to someone who you have no relationship with!"

I'm just popping back in to report that the Amazon return went off without a hitch. My account has already been credited back for the smelly book, and the new copy that I ordered to replace the smelly one has arrived.

The only harm done was to my bank account, since I "vengefully" threw in a couple of extra piano booklets when I ordered the replacement for the stinky book. Shopping while peeved can be dangerous...

... but now I can report that this practice guide is pretty cool. It's only a 3 page laminated fold-out, but it's densely packed with excellent practice hints. I've been finding it very energizing to look at when my practice gets unfocused.

Wheras this very similar looking item is a 100+ page book (by the same author) which expands on the condensed nuggets of practice wisdom in the previous item.

I may actually prefer the condensed version, though. It packs more of a punch when my practice gets languid (as can happen in hot weather).

Most of the suggestions I have run across before, via the forum and one book or another. I think the impact comes from having all of them densely packed on a largish fold-out pamphlet, which allows my eye to scan over a wide assortment of options until it lands on the one that makes me think, "Bingo! That's just what I needed."

An interesting one was for learning a difficult series of chords:First play the top notes of all the chords, then the bottom notes, then the top and bottom notes together. Then go through options like middle & top, and middle & bottom, just the middles, etc.

Another I hadn't tried before was, when a short passage is difficult, not just to play it over and over, but to play it forward and backward, until one can loop back & forth, faster & faster.

Others include classics like starting learning at the end of a section, and learn it working forward.

But I think I will end up using it mostly as a practice-rut buster, for when I catch myself phoning in mindless repetitions of a difficult passage, and realize I need to shake myself out of comfortable habits.